Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Business

Matthew Notter
Matthew Notter
5,335 Points
Posted by Matthew Notter
Matthew Notter
5,335 Points

Need help for starting a freelance career, how to be confident of my "Hard Skills".

I've generally been interested in starting a freelancing career to help pay my way through college instead of working a linear dead-beat job where I don't feel like I'm learning any new skills.

I started programming in JS, HTML, CSS back in May 2014, and I'm becoming more and more confident of my ability to program websites, I've found the freelance information on this site extremely helpful.

The issue I'm having with the freelance information on this site though is how to know when you are ready to start a career in freelancing. I felt as if the freelance videos are targeted towards someone who already had a career in web development field, and not really any information on those who are seeking to develop their skills so that they will be able to perform tasks for individuals.

I have a current goal of getting started on this by the summer of 2015 (May) where I start to put projects under my belt and build a portofolio, right now I'm trying to learn as much as I possibly can in hopes I can feel ready to create websites up to standards enough that it's worth the money to the client.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

---------------------------------MAIN QUESTION-------------------------------

My main question is, how will I know when I'm ready to start? There's very clearly a lot of information I don't know right now as I'm running through the website design track and the PHP development track, but Is there a clear way to know when you are ready to develop and be paid for it?

Ryan Duchene
Ryan Duchene
Courses Plus Student 46,022 Points

Re-tagging this as Business; now we can upvote. :)

1 Answer

Ricky Catron
Ricky Catron
13,023 Points
Ricky Catron
Ricky Catron
13,023 Points

Honestly I feel that you could be ready as soon as you build your first basic website BUT do not oversell or overpromise your clients. If all you can build is static sites which do not resize be sure they know that going in. They may be fine will lesser work for lesser money. I built my first website once I knew enough PHP to string it all together. I was far from good but I was do able and the company I worked with was okay with that. Challenge yourself doing something you have never done is fine but make sure you do your research and do not over promise what you are able to provide.